


The Fractures Within Us

by Lady_Therion



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV), Summer (2008)
Genre: Anyelle, F/M, Rumbelle Christmas in July 2016, Shelle
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-23
Updated: 2016-07-23
Packaged: 2018-07-26 08:05:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,880
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7566541
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lady_Therion/pseuds/Lady_Therion
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In need of relief, Shaun meets massage therapist, Belle French who has been mute for several years. With each successive session, layers are pulled back, walls are broken down and hurts are healed in more than one way.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Fractures Within Us

**Author's Note:**

  * For [xxlovesuicide61xx](https://archiveofourown.org/users/xxlovesuicide61xx/gifts).



> For my RCIJ giftee @xxlovesuicide61xx whose prompt was “the quiet days (anyelle).” It was wonderful getting to know you; it’s always a pleasure meeting someone who enjoys a tall glass of Anyelle, but especially Shelle, which is near and dear to my heart.
> 
> FYI: this story is about pain, but it’s mostly about healing. It’s meant to have a happy ending, but please tread lightly — parts of it do allude to abuse.

* * *

 

_Whenever I’m alone with you_

_You make me feel like I am home again_

_Whenever I’m alone with you_

_You make me feel like I am whole again_

 

-Adele, Lovesong

* * *

 

 

The pain comes in fits and starts: a dull throb as heavy as a brick or a sudden twinge as razor sharp as a piano wire. It races from the back of his neck, down the veins of his arm, to the fingertips of his mangled hand.

 

At first, Shaun gets on like he always does — waiting out the storm like a weary fisherman. He’s no stranger to pain, having swallowed his own fair share of it as a boy, when he crushed the bones of his own fist in a violent fit of self-hatred.

 

Steadfast, Shaun endures, even as the days between agony grow closer and closer together, until they are mere hours apart. In fact it isn’t until he drops a nozzle at the gas station — the errant spray of fuel soaking his jeans, as the nerves in his arm seize hard enough to make his teeth clench — that he considers going to a doctor.

 

It’s Daniel who drives him there, his withdrawn face belying the anxious worry Shaun can see plain as day. There is a strange feeling of upside-downness as Daniel takes the seat next to him in the waiting room, much like Shaun did with Daz. The upside-downness hits him so hard that several knots form in his stomach, and he near misses his name being called by a lively nurse in taffy pink scrubs.

 

***

 

“Physically, you’re fine.”

 

Shaun responds with a blank look.

 

“Well, you know… all things considered.” The doctor clears his throat. “Erm, tell me again about your hand? What caused the injury?”

 

Shaun doesn’t go into specifics, especially not with Daniel in the room. He explains that it was an accident in a woodshop class, how he had only managed to gain partial control since then, how he had found ways to rely on his left hand and how he had been doing rather swimmingly — “all things considered” — until now.

 

He describes all of this with a clinical kind of numbness, as though he is describing the events of an entirely different person — a person he keeps on the other side of a glass wall, where he can never hurt anyone again, not even himself.

 

The doctor says nothing for a moment, assessing his notes. “It could be stress-related. Did you experience anything major over the last few months? A move, a loss, something like that?”

 

Daniel glances at him briefly, then looks away. Shaun doesn’t answer...or rather, lets the answer hang carelessly in the air, like laundry blowing on the line.

 

“I can prescribe you some painkillers,” the doctor says. “But I think you might benefit better from some physical therapy. I can write you a referral — you should plan on scheduling an appointment for next week.”

 

“Right,” says Shaun, “Sure. Next week.”

 

***

 

On the way home, Daniel asks him about his next appointment. “I’ve got plans with Molly on Tuesday, but any other day I could—”

 

“I’m not going,” says Shaun, even as he rubs the frayed nerves of his arm. He doesn’t know why he’s being childish, he only knows that it makes him feel in control. “I’ve got _this_ don’t I?” He shakes the pill bottle in his hand.

 

“You’re only supposed to take that at night,” says Daniel, his chin up. “To help you sleep. It won’t help you during the day. How are you supposed to get on at work, eh? Or in class?

 

Shaun turns his head towards the car window, trying not to let his hangdog expression show. Daniel’s words touch him in a way a candle flame would, stinging with intensity yet with no intent to harm.

 

Deep down, he knows Daniel is only trying to make up for lost time — time spent on serrated words exchanged with his father, jagged moments where the wounds would linger for days, their lives split into broken fragments that drove them further and further apart with Shaun caught in the middle.

 

Shatterings upon shatterings — and there is only so much Shaun can mend. In this, Shaun often feels his failings as acutely as the pain in his arm.

 

***

 

Daniel takes Shaun to a physical therapist later that week.

 

The stubborn little bugger.

 

***

 

The waiting room at the Mind, Body and Balance Clinic is different from all the ones Shaun is used to. Thick stalks of bamboo line the wine red walls. A cluster of plush sofas surround a cheery fireplace. Books lay on the coffee tables in place of month-old magazines. Every guest is offered a hot cuppa at the door.

 

In short, it’s not what Shaun expects.

 

It’s not what Daniel expects either, given the low whistle he gives as they sign in at the front desk. But Shaun doesn’t get to lounge too long and has only taken a sip of his Earl Gray before the receptionist calls his name and leads him down a private corridor. All around him are the soundwaves of ambient music.  

 

“You’ll be meeting with Belle today,” she says. “So you’ll be in very good hands. But before you settle in, I have to tell you...our girl doesn’t speak.”

 

Shaun blinks. “Doesn’t speak? But...how…?”

 

“Oh don’t worry. She’ll be using a notepad to ask you questions. That is, if you’re comfortable with that. If not, we can certainly find someone else…”

 

She trails off, trying to suss him out. In truth, Shaun feels a sense of relief. It’s been a long while since he felt someone else’s hands on his bare skin, and though this isn’t the way he usually imagined it, he at least didn’t have to embarrass himself with awkward conversation.

 

“Yeah, yeah... that’s all right.”

 

***

 

Shaun doesn’t know what to do while he waits, so he sits on the edge of the massage table. He’s doesn’t know why he’s so bloody nervous, but he is. Yet the more he examines the absurdity of his fear, the more anxious he gets (and sweaty as hell too). The pain burning a hole through his arm isn’t helping either, and he wonders if it’s not too late to cancel. But just as his nerves are about to unravel, the door swings open.

 

And his breath catches in his throat.  

 

It’s not because she’s pretty — even though she is.

 

It’s the way she is _aware_ of him.

 

He can’t explain the strange alchemical reaction when her blue eyes rest on his, like she has changed him in some subtle way just by looking. It’s something akin to electricity, but not like a bolt of lightning. No, it’s more like someone turning the lights on in a room that’s been boarded up and forgotten. She looks at him with a keen gentleness that he’s felt only once before, in the sweet summers of his youth.

 

She waves hello and it’s then he remembers that she can’t speak. She pulls out a notepad and scribbles something on it, then shows him the page.

 

It says “Hello, Shaun!” with a little doodle of a kitten that just about broke his heart.

 

“Hello,” he says.

 

She writes him another note. “What can I do for you today?”

 

He stumbles and stammers his way through it all, pointing out every joint between his neck, shoulder, elbow and wrist. He shows her his hand and glosses over his old injury, feeling bloody self-conscious about it, as though those piercing blue eyes of hers can see into the past and pry out all the reasons for why it happened.

 

But she just nods and looks on attentively, hanging on every word like it’s actually important. Then she writes him again, asking him to hold out his arm, asking him if it’s all right to move it this way and that so she can check his range of motion.

 

He falls pliant under her hands when she moves him about, but can’t stop himself from hissing and wincing when she pulled his arm backwards and forwards. At one point, he nearly wrenches it back from her, his limb suddenly iron hot like someone put a brand to it.

 

She clucks at him sympathetically, and he thinks that if she could speak, she would coo (and he’s not entirely sure why he wants to hear that from her). Then she asks him to remove his shirt — she’ll leave the room — and lay out on the table.

 

He does so and she returns a few moments later, her hands smelling like herbal oil as she dims the lights and turns on a little radio. It plays soft, sad loves songs and damn him if he doesn’t feel the overwhelming urge to fall asleep — not because he’s bored, but because he hasn’t slept well at all in the past few weeks, and he has a feeling that Belle’s fingers can take him away to a land of dreams...to somewhere in his past….

 

...where, in his thoughtlessness, he almost killed himself and his best friend.  

 

The dark thought jars him awake, so much so that he tenses like a spooked animal when he finally feels Belle’s smooth fingers glide over the skin of his back. He tries not to think about how long it’s been since someone— anyone, really — has touched him like this. He wonders what she might think of his body, how lanky and crooked and worn it has gotten over the years and it makes him sweat more. Jesus Christ.

 

Suddenly, he feels nothing but cool air.

 

She is leaning over him now, so that he can see her face. Her breaths come out in a long, slow, even cadence. It takes Shaun a moment to realise that she’s asking him to do it with her — drawing air of the room through his nostrils and out his mouth until his heart settles in his chest. She encourages him to keep doing it, returns to his back, her fingers running along the curve of his spine, as though she is trying to calm an agitated mule.

 

The motion makes him drowsy, like he is caught floating in the stillness of the ocean.

 

She kneads and tugs and presses deeply, flexing the points of her index fingers like they were little triggers. The pain they evoke is sharp at times, enough to make him whine and groan embarrassingly, but Shaun can feel the various knots come undone. His muscles becoming pure clay for her to mold.

 

He is only with her for an hour. Yet it feels like seconds. It feels like days.

 

When the little timer goes off, she moves her fingers in circles around his temples. Then lightly strokes the wisps of his hair away from his forehead. Then she pats him on his shoulders — now sweetly tender on both sides — and squeezes them as if to say, “Thank you.”

 

***

 

“So how was it?” asks Daniel, as they drove back home.

 

Shaun feels his face tingle at the memory of Belle’s hands and shrugs. “It was fine.”

 

But Daniel — the cheeky little tit — smirks at him anyway. “Yeah, I’m sure she was.”

 

***

 

Shaun sees Belle once a week, for the next six months.

 

Slowly but surely, his body gets used to her touch. In fact, he’s proud to say that he’s less of a nervous wreck each time they meet.

 

He also gets used to the way they “speak” to one another. He admits that he thought it might be harder in the beginning, but Belle had a way of understanding him that didn’t really need words, spoken or written.

 

And speaking of written, did Belle ever find herself poring over every word she wrote day by day? She is one of the few people he knows who could look over every conversation she had in black and white, nothing lost or reshaped by fickle memory.

 

Regardless, every time she comes into the room, it’s her lovely smile that puts him at ease as well as her hands that seem to say, “Yes I know. Don’t you worry. I know...” as she coaxed and calmed his arm.

 

“Belle’s a fine girl,” says the receptionist. “One of our best. All of our patients love her.”

 

 _Well of course they would_ , Shaun thinks. _They’d be idiots not too._

 

But inside his cracked and fragile heart, is a secret wish that he could have her all to himself. That whatever magic she shares with others would be his and his alone.

 

It’s a jealous epiphany that grows out of a murky fog, taking shape, gaining size, until he realises much too late what it is he _actually_ wants from her — and how he sure as hell doesn’t deserve it.

 

But that still didn’t stop him from wishing it, every now and then.

 

***

 

There’s one week where the pain comes back with a vengeance.

 

It happens on a day when Shaun visits the lake — which he hasn’t done since he poured Daz’ ashes into its warm, black depths a year before. Dusk bleeds into the far horizon, and if Shaun squints just right, he can almost see a mirage of his younger self and Daz on the docks of the opposite shore.

 

Carefree and unbroken.

 

Happy.

 

One year later and where is Shaun now? Almost as lost and alone as he’s always been. Though he knows he has Daniel to look after now, Shaun knew it wouldn’t be for long. The lad is his own man, and any day now, he would get it in his head to leave Shaun too.

 

As his thoughts continue their dark spiral, he feels the shadow of pain wind its way around his arm. It’s distant, but there, like a gathering storm.

 

It doesn’t strike until the middle of the night, when he is caught in a nightmare of a burning school and a broken bike and Daz’ legs...smashed and broken...all those eyes on him...accusing…

 

_I’m sorry, I’m sorry..._

 

When he wakes, it’s like his arm had been put through a guillotine. The pain raw and fresh.

 

He takes a pill and counts the hours until he can see Belle the next day.

 

***

 

“Where does it hurt, Shaun?” Belle asks him.

 

He sees her innocent words on her pretty notepad and it’s like ripping a scab from a wound. He can feel the tears spill down his face, and wishes that _she_ of all people didn’t have to see them.

 

But at the same time, he can’t help placing his half-dead hand over his half-dead heart as he says, “Here. It hurts here.”

 

It’s been hurting for a long time.

 

And that’s when he tells her about his fears, his failures and how they could all be traced to that hellish summer afternoon when he cut Daz’ life from under him.

 

She listens to it all and doesn’t flinch.

 

After a while, she writes, “It’s okay to still hurt Shaun.”

 

The back of his eyes sting as she holds onto his hand, the ruined one. He can’t say the words, they are stuck in his throat where his tongue has grown thick. So he picks up her pen and he writes,

 

“Thank you.”

 

She holds him close after that, hands rubbing his back, and it feels just as good as when she heals his hurts in other ways. Maybe better.

 

***

 

Before he leaves, she writes him another note.

 

It’s her number.

 

***

 

He keeps the little scrap of paper in his pocket for days afterward, unsure of what to do.

 

“Just give her a bloody call, man,” says Daniel, impatient.

 

In the end, though, it’s her that calls him.

 

Or texts him, rather.

 

_Free to meet at the pub on Saturday? :)_

 

***

 

The pub she mentions is about a block and a half away from the clinic.

 

Shaun is a half hour early and picks a booth near the door so that Belle can find him easier. As he walks past the bar, he catches the eye of some red-faced bloke deep into his glass of gin. The bloke gives him a once over, then the evil eye. If he were younger, Shaun would have asked him what’s what. But he doesn’t. Instead, he coldly brushes off the poor sod and sits in his booth.

 

A half hour later, when the waitress brings him some water, he gets another message from Belle.

 

_Sorry, running late. Be there soon!_

 

“Oi.”

 

Shaun looks up. It’s the red-faced man from the bar.

 

“I _know_ you,” he says. “From Clitherow.”

 

Clitherow had been one of the many schools that Shaun didn’t take to, which means that this man might very well be one of the many victims he haplessly unleashed his rage on.

 

“I don’t want any trouble,” Shaun says calmly.  

 

“You fucking broke my face in two,” says the man. “And you probably don’t even remember my name.”

 

It’s true. Shaun doesn’t. He swallows as he sees the man clench his fists.

 

But just then Belle arrives...with the pub owner right behind her.

 

“Is there a problem here?” the pub owner asks.

 

The red-faced man takes a few moments to size things up, then begrudgingly shakes his head. “No problems here.”

 

“Then you’d best be on your way then,” says the owner.

 

The man nods, then slinks off, but not before glaring daggers over his shoulder.

 

Belle looks at Shaun worriedly.

 

How many more ghosts would haunt him today?

 

***

 

“You wanted that man to hit you,” Belle writes.

 

They had been at the pub well over three hours now, and are one of the only few people left.

 

Shaun shies away from Belle’s words, but he nods. “Yeah, I did.”

 

Her unspoken question beseeches him. _Why?_

 

“I don’t know,” he says, toying with a soiled napkin. “Maybe it’s because I think I deserve it. I was a mean child, Belle. Angry at myself. Angry at the world. I wasn’t a good person.” He doesn’t think he got much better over the years.

 

She holds his hand in hers again, always reaching the broken one. Then she turns to a new page in her notepad and writes, “You have to forgive yourself sometime Shaun. Daz already did.”

 

***

 

They meet again for dinner several times after that.

 

First at other pubs, then eventually just at his place. Shaun tries to think nothing of it — they’re just two adults sharing good company, is all. But of course Daniel has to get all smug about it, even as he made himself scarce during the nights Belle comes over.

 

***

 

The pain visits him less and less often, and even when it does, it would snarl and snap and then leave, instead of sinking its teeth into his flesh and refusing to let go. That Shaun was doing better is a bittersweet milestone for them both, since he has less occasion to see Belle on a weekly basis and there are only so many nights when the both of them are otherwise free.

 

But in the time they manage to find together, they share more secrets. Each one unfolding another layer of the other person. Shaun learns that Belle has been alone most of her life. Her mother and father gone and dead when she was only eight. Since then, it had been one relative after another...until the patience of her relatives ran out and she was given over to foster care.

 

She learned early on how to rely only on herself.

 

But that didn’t mean she didn’t make her own mistakes.

 

Mistakes that had cost her more than she can sometimes bear.

 

 _“_ Once upon a time,” she writes, “I met a man.”

 

She stops, her bottom lip trembling. Shaun grasps her hand, rubbing the back of her knuckles as she had done with him many times over.

 

“You don’t have to,” he tells her.

 

But she shakes her head as if to say, ‘ _Yes I do.’_

 

“I was in love, so I didn’t see him for what he was. Not at first. He grew meaner by the day. Made me stop seeing people. Friends. Co-workers. He got violent. I was so stupid. How could I not see? Then he just got worse and worse. So much worse. I thought I would die. Then I ran away, but...”

 

And here she drops the pen, her head in her hands as she shook all over — violent, shaky sobs that ate through his insides until they hit the core of his soul. He takes her into his arms and she collapses into them, a hurt child looking for comfort from all the bad things that happened to her.

 

“It wasn’t your fault,” he whispers to her, “It wasn’t your fault.”

 

Afterwards, after her tears dried against her cheeks, she picks up her pen again and wrote the words that Shaun knew would haunt him as much as the memory of Daz did.

 

“First he took my heart. Then he took my body. Then he took my voice.”

 

She hadn’t spoken a word since.

 

***

 

Though Shaun is mostly recovered, there are still a few follow-ups left for him to take care of. Despite how often he and Belle meet, he still looks forward to seeing her at the clinic, especially since their sessions are now scheduled a four to six weeks apart.

 

It surprises then that she isn’t at work that day.

 

“Belle is out unfortunately,” the receptionist tells him with wan smile. “You’ll be with Susan, instead.”

 

Shaun nods, though he can’t stem the childish pang of disappointment that wells up inside him. _Belle didn’t mention anything about missing work…_ “When will she be back?”

 

“Next week,” she says.

 

***

 

But she’s not there next week.

 

Or the week after.

 

And soon Shaun begins to worry. “Is Belle all right?”

 

“I’m sure she is,” the receptionist says. “She’s been taken ill for a little while. Nothing serious, from what I heard.” Then she pencils him in again for the following month.

 

***

 

 _Belle, where are you?_ He texts.

 

She doesn’t write him back.

 

Nothing.

 

Just gaping holes where Belle’s words should be.

 

***

 

“Do you have Belle’s address on hand? I just want to make sure she’s okay.”

 

The receptionist presses her lips together nervously. “We don’t give out that information, Shaun. I’m sorry. It’s the rules.”

 

 _Fuck the rules,_ he wants to say, but he doesn’t because he knows where outbursts like that get him. Then he curses some more at the astounding fact that he never thought to ask Belle’s address to begin with. It isn’t like her to just vanish or disappear.

 

He is growing more afraid and desperate.

 

Something is wrong.

 

***

 

“Don’t ask where I got this,” says Daniel, giving him a scrap of paper with an address in the city. “Let’s just say I know a friend of a friend.”

 

Shaun doesn’t say anything, only claps Daniel on the shoulder in gratitude as he heads out into the night.

 

***

 

Two bus rides and a short trip on the tube later, Shaun is standing outside an old brownstone building on the corner of Wiltshire and Ham.

 

Belle’s flat is on the fourth floor. The window wide open. The curtains pulled apart.

 

What is he doing here?

 

He is worried for a friend, that’s all. But had his worry drove him daft?

 

But then, Shaun sees him.

 

A dark-haired man at the window.

 

 _That’s him_ , Shaun thinks, _the man who took away Belle’s voice._

 

There is a faraway sound of something crashing and the window grows dark.

 

***

 

The door to Belle’s apartment is left ajar, the lock having been broken.

 

When Shaun finally finds her, his world shrinks to two things:  Belle’s eyes, wide as saucers, as she wrenches her bruised wrist from a dark-haired man towering over her. And the dark-haired man himself.

 

“What the hell are you doing here?” The man snarls at him. “Get the fuck out. This is none of your business.”

 

Strangely, Shaun doesn’t feel any of the old, familiar rage.

 

Only cold, clear purpose.

 

He turns and grabs a nearby poker and strides towards atonement.

 

***

 

Shaun stays with her afterwards. He can’t imagine being anywhere else.

 

The police arrive an hour later, hauling the dark-haired man (Shaun refuses to say his name, even in his mind) into the back of their squad car. Belle had a restraining order placed against him a while back. His violation of it would make sure he wouldn’t be seen again for a long time.

 

Shaun thinks of the hot poker smashing against the bastard’s head. Reliving the grim satisfaction of seeing him crumple to the ground, getting all that he had been giving.

 

It’s Belle that stops him in the end. Her eyes full of tears as the dark-haired man — the man who claimed time and time again that his meanness meant love — lay on his back, unconscious.

 

He calls Daniel who tells him he understands, and that yes, he “can manage without him for a few days, bloody hell.” The irritation in Daniel’s voice is feigned though. If anything, Shaun knows he’s as worried about Belle as he is.

 

***

 

Shaun places an ice pack over Belle’s wrist, just as his mother had done after he got into a fight.

 

They are laid out on Belle’s sofa, tucked in at the end.

 

The bruise looks worse than it actually is, angry and red. Seeing it makes Shaun’s insides churn and he holds her to him all the more closely. One arm wrapping around her shoulder, burying his nose into her hair.

 

Belle writes to him using her other hand, the one not injured. Her handwriting is a little shaky, but legible.

 

“He found me,” she says. “I don’t know how. I saw him standing outside my flat every night in his car. He found my number too. He told me that if I told anyone, he would find them and hurt them. That it would be all my fault…I couldn’t…I couldn’t. But you...”

 

She had no more words.

 

Instead she turns into Shaun’s embrace and kisses him fiercely.

 

She is rough, demanding, earnest and alive.

 

He is shocked, purely shocked, as though he has been plunged headfirst into cold water.

 

Like a slow engine, he works up to kissing her back. Leaning back against the cushions as she crawls over him, removing her blouse, her bra, his shirt…

 

He wants to touch her like she has touched him all those months. Slow and sweet. But no, there is a fire in her tonight, and she wants nothing less than his passion and eagerness.

 

And oh, does he have so much to give her.  

 

But she deserves to be asked first.

 

“Belle...can I...could we…” It’s hard to concentrate as she mouths at his throat. Her little pink tongue darting here and there, making him think of other places where he would want her tongue. “I want to. I want to. But only if you want to...only if you want to…please, please don’t make me a regret.”

 

She stills above him, then stares deeply into his eyes. “No,” her eyes tell him, glistening with unshed tears (but she is smiling at the same time, so he knows that she’s not upset). “You could never be a regret,” is what her beautiful fingers say when she strokes his hair from his face in the way that he likes.

 

“Yes, yes, yes,” he mutters as she leans down to bite his chin before removing her knickers. She grabs his fingers and places them on her little nub and he has to grit his teeth at how _wet_ she is, she is practically seeping over him.

 

But it’s not only his fingers that she wants.

 

He can feel himself falling, even as he pushes himself into her. Her head snapping back as her gorgeous lips form a startled “oh.” The warm, slick, tightness of her womanhood grasps at the hard length of him. It’s too much, all at once, being this deep inside her. But damn him, if it isn’t the sweetest gift in the whole world. Being with her. Staying like this. He could honestly die.

 

But he doesn’t. No, instead he begins to thrust. Slowly, holding himself back. He wants to be gentle. He wants it to be good. But the way Belle clings to him, the fine sheen of sweat breaking across that lovely neck and the tops of her breasts, makes him falter. His hips move faster against her. She urges him on, clutching at his hips as they both reach that heavenly peak.

 

He can feel himself coming, coming, coming…

 

But she comes first, arching her back into a bow, her lips gasping before she kisses him again. Wetly. Lovingly. Until his thrusts slow against her. And then he stills.

 

They make love again three more times before the night is over.

 

***

 

Dawn breaks quietly over the city.

 

The sit on the roof to watch it, standing behind the stone ledge, their breaths mingling in the crisp autumn air, fingers interlacing as tightly as a lock and key.

 

As the sun steals over the horizon, bathing everything in a rose gold light, Belle leans her head against his shoulder and whispers...

 

“ _Shaun…_ ”


End file.
